Laila immediately stiffened as I came before her and bowed. For the first time since all those nights ago, her eyes met mine. Power flourished and pumped through my veins as her expression betrayed the smallest flash of fear, but a disappointing mask of cool resolve quickly hid it away.
“Enjoying the party?” I smirked. “I must compliment your majesty on the unnecessarily lavish display.”
“You are not welcome here.” Ooh, my Laila was attempting to freeze me with grand royal contempt. I resisted the impulse to clap.
“I am under no illusions, madam. I never expected you to receive me…with open arms.” Perhaps my allusion to our momentary mésalliance was wrong of me, seeing as how I tasted something bitter when she blanched and blushed, but it was done.
“Why have you chosen to come on this particular night?” she asked, the first crack in the royal mask slowly showing.
“Let us just say that I am never one to let a golden opportunity pass me by. Besides, I am not in the wrong here. If I’m not mistaken it is you who are beholden to me. I can appear whenever and wherever I wish.”
Her eyes flashed, and her lips grew quite thin. She was pretty when she was angry, which was most of the time. I wondered if I provoked her just to see the heated rise and fall of her chest.
Again I bowed before her, adding extra flourish to the way I extended my hand. “Lest you think I am all pride, I beg—indeed, most fervently—for the privilege of a dance with your majesty.”
She stared at my hand as if I held the very plague in my palm. “You cannot be serious,” she said through clenched teeth. “Why would I ever accept such an invitation from you?”
“Because, madam, people are beginning to notice you talking to an exceptionally handsome and dashing, though sadly unknown, fellow. There are no rules against conversing while dancing, but to speak as intently as we are, well… I would take my hand, if I were you, before they get too nosey and their gossip makes it to the king’s ears. We must keep up appearances if we wish to discuss the matter further.”
I ignored the flash of hurt at the look of resignation in her eyes as she rose and placed her hand in mine.
“If you hadn’t chosen to come to the ball,” she said quietly, now through a bland smile. “We would have been concerned for our appearances.”
Ah, my clever girl. “I would be happy to oblige your majesty next time by appearing in your bedroom in the dead of night for any further intimate conversations.”
“Straw is not all that you spin,” she said, still smiling perfectly, though unable to hide the slight rolling of her eyes.
I was delighted with her progress from miller’s daughter to queen. Her caustic wit was still very much in evidence, but it had been refined and sharpened by exposure to the witty repartee of court. Her movements through the opening of the dance were a graceful world away from the weary scurrying across a dungeon floor to fill baskets of straw. She was simply magnificent, and I felt comforted in the thought that after the king’s coming ‘decline,’ she would be the kind of monarch the kingdom needed.
In the next turn of the dance, I placed my hand on the small of her back and pulled her against me. The feel of her body on mine wrapped me in warm velvet, and I could see nothing but the nervous breath upon her lips.
“I know you’ve come for the child,” she stated as the cry of the violins compelled our every move.
“I thought that rather obvious,” I replied. Lifting her arm, I walked around her in a tight circle before pulling her roughly to me once again.
We glared at each other, feeling the pounding of each other’s hearts. There was no escaping one another now. All one could do was push forward.
“There is a problem you did not foresee,” she said, spinning in my arms and slipping one of her feet between mine to prepare for the next move. “I’ve changed my mind and you can’t have him.”
She stepped forward, and the dance obliged me to step back. Oh, what a mastery of irony she had acquired. I tightened my grip around her waist and picked her up to spin her around once before setting her down. I pulled her with me as I stepped back, compelling her to move forward in a parody of leading.
“That is a shame,” I said. “It could have been so easy for you, but it looks like you’ve made the mistake of letting your heart get attached to what it knows it cannot have.”
Her breaths grew quicker as on the next lift and spin, she repeated my movement and pulled me two steps back with her. I closed my eyes, unexpectedly caught by a vision of her roughly pushing me back onto my back as she climbed upon me and…
I released her and circled her as I had at the beginning, the steps beginning all over again.
Once more, I yanked her in, carelessly allowing myself to revel in the feel of her breasts and hips pressing against me.
“Why don’t you just be a good girl, fetch the child, and we can get this nasty business all over with,” I said, lowering my head to whisper in her ear, letting my lips brush the delicate flesh. “Then you can move on with the rest of your life.”
“No,” she responded, turning her face so that our lips were no more than a breath apart. “You don’t understand. I won’t let you take him. I will fight for him until you bleed.”
“I’d be careful if I were you,” I hissed. “Breaking a deal with me is not so simple as you might think. You gave me your name. Signed it away in your own blood with these sweet fingers of yours.” I raised her fingers to my lips and kissed the tip of one, daring to give it the barest suckle. “If you break our agreement, nothing but darkness awaits your soul.”
She gasped, and for a moment, I was confused whether her reaction was that of fear or desire, or perhaps both. Or was it my own reaction of fear and desire that had shaken me? The thought of Laila taken by the darkness that awaited oath-breakers was suddenly and utterly intolerable.
A shadow fell upon us.
“How dare you be so familiar with my queen!”
I froze at the sound of that voice. I saw blood, smelled smoke, and heard the screams of the dying. Blinking I was back in the ballroom, looking upon gold, smelling perfumed oil, and listening to the sound of violins.
Still holding his queen in my arms, I turned to see King Edward for the first time since I was a boy. He looked much older than last I saw him, but that was to be expected. Lean muscle and sharp angles now replaced the gangly youth, but that couldn’t hide the monster he was. I wanted to rip out his throat, but he didn’t deserve such a kindness.
“Who the bloody hell are you?” he bellowed, ripping Laila from my arms and forcing her to his side.
The dancers stopped, and the chatter died away, along with the flutes and the drums. All eyes were on us. The last note of a violin died away in the silence.
“That depends on who you ask,” I replied, pleased that my voice did not shake from rage. “To some, I am a savior, and to others, a nightmare. To you, I am judgment.”
He laughed heartily. A few nervous chuckles rose from the crowd, following their monarch’s example.
“Only an ass would hide behind a riddle,” the king retorted.
“Only a fool would not be able to solve it,” I countered with the ease of catching a ball clumsily thrown by a child.
The laughter dissolved into gasps. The king’s amusement ended at his lips.
“Kill him,” he spat to his guards.
Flashes of rattling silver and steel came at me from both sides.
“I take it we are not in a playful mood this evening?” I taunted. “Good. Neither am I.”
I twisted my wrists, and the guard’s necks snapped like twigs. Their bodies fell to the floor with a brassy clatter. The king stared blankly at the dead men with his mouth open, like some dumb animal.
“I think you might want to reconsider listening to what I have to say, Eddy—may I call you Eddy? We have a considerable amount of business to get through tonight,” I stated.
The room shuddered at the sound of my voice, and I loved the
sensation. King Edward tilted his head to the side as if trying to understand exactly who…or what…stood before him.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Nothing but the debt I am owed.”
Confusion flooded his expression. “What on earth would that be?”
“Your firstborn,” I replied casually.
The king let out a nervous chuckle. I could see he wanted to believe I was simply mad.
“I am afraid you are mistaken in my identity,” he said in a voice reserved only for fools and children. “I have never contracted any debt with you.”
“Quite right,” I agreed. “But she has,” I added, gesturing to Laila. “I take it she never told you about our little agreement?”
The king glared at Laila. An awful silence fell on the crowd until Laila spun to face them.
“Leave us, all of you,” she commanded. “For God’s sake, get out!”
The floor shook as the revelers stampeded towards the door. Goblets and plates fell like golden hail on the ground as the courtiers escaped into the safety of the night.
“Too bad.” I clucked my tongue. “I feel I always perform better before an audience.”
Laila shot me a look of disgust. It was just like old times.
“You cutthroat bitch!” the king spat, turning on Laila and backhanding her. The blow spun her, and my fingers twitched with the need to teach him a lesson about throat-cutting, then and there.
Holding her cheek, Laila straightened up to her full height, her eyes bright with hate for both of us.
“I hardly think Laila deserves all the blame in this little mess,” I said, cutting off her comments for her own safety. The king’s attention swung back to me, and I saw the small, savory flame of desperation beginning to pulse in his soul. “If I recall, it was only because of you that she was driven to make such a deal in the first place. What kind of fool believes a drunk when he says his daughter can spin straw into gold? Wait, do not answer. I think I know. It must be a king whose greed for gold and power far outstrips his feeble powers of reasoning. Wouldn’t you agree?”
During my speech, I had sauntered over to the thrones and casually dropped myself into the king’s seat. He saw naught but lese majesté, but I took a moment to think of my father and of the boy I was, the boy who could have been but never wanted to be king.
“So, what is a poor girl to do when the big, bad, mad king threatens—most convincingly—to cut off her head when she can’t perform the impossible?” I continued, nonchalantly waving my fingers and conjuring a piece of straw to twirl lazily in the air. “Can you fault her for seizing the opportunity to save herself?”
A slight twist of my fingers, and the straw began to gleam with the brilliance of gold. It was almost laughable the way the king’s eyes went wide at the sight. Almost.
“All those nights she spent locked away in that dungeon, I was there spinning for her. Every thread you worship ran through my fingers.”
His face turned a nasty shade of purple as he trembled.
“What is your proof of such an arrangement?” he seethed. “I demand to see the contract.”
“Very wise,” I chuckled. Bringing my hands together in a clap that echoed like thunder. “I am more than happy to grant such a request.”
Standing from the throne, I opened my palm and the contract appeared, the scroll unwinding itself as it rolled to the floor and all the way to the king’s feet. He looked at the bottom of the paper, and the purple infecting his face dissolved into white. Laila’s name still gleamed in her own blood as fresh as the day she first signed.
After All: Laila
I looked upon my folly, committed by my own hand. I tried to unravel the tangle of events in my mind, to see if there had been a moment when I could have chosen differently. Yet, without the exact choices I had made, Tristan would never have been born.
Love and pain warred in my heart, but they were nothing to the clarion call of motherhood that demanded that I give nothing less than my all to protect my child now.
“Is it true?” Edward demanded. “Did you commit this treason?”
“Yes,” I answered with a shrug. What was the point of denying the truth?
“Yes?” he roared. “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”
“What more is there to say?” I shot back. “I saw no other way out except the offer he made me of my life, a good life, and I grasped it tight in my fist. Was I just supposed to let myself die at your hands when there was a chance I could live?”
Explaining actual human emotion, fear, to Edward was futile. He remained unmoved, incapable, the contract proving my sin clutched in his hand. I looked back to the stranger, the man who stood between my child and me. He looked wild, hungry, like some beast roving through a wood. I knew he could tear me limb from limb, but I would not succumb without a fight.
I stood before the stranger. He glared at me, and I remembered how he had detested my weakness. Now, I realized that he hated my weakness because he must have been vulnerable to it somehow. Perhaps it reminded him of his own feelings which he tried so hard to repress. Pain was power, yes, but I also knew that weakness could be strength. I hated I had to permit that pleading side of me I wished to forget to bleed through once again, but I had no choice.
“You’re going to rip away an innocent child from its mother just because I was scared? Because I wanted to live?” I asked, allowing the horror of it all to swell deep within my heart. For the first time, he remained silent, and I took my chance to push my emotions harder, to let the raw anger flowing within my veins to roll down my cheeks and redden my eyes. “You just admitted I wasn’t entirely to blame. I was backed into a corner. Trapped. You gave me my only chance. I’m asking you now, here, for another chance. Just one more, and then you can do what you will.”
His muscles stiffened. Tears fell from my eyes, and I let them roll down my face. I wanted him to see my torment, to aggravate him into understanding my rage.
It did not take long before I noticed his right eye twitching, his lips moving hungrily as he placed his hand over my heart. He let his fingers graze my skin, and I cursed myself as my stomach coiled from his touch as it never had for Edward. His gaze fell to where he continued to caress my skin, his eyes intense and nearly smoldering. Then, he pressed his hand firmly to my chest, as if desperately trying to retrieve some treasure he frantically wanted.
“Just one chance. That’s all I ask.” I pushed again, a fresh wave of pain rolling through me.
He pulled back his hand as if burned.
“Stop!” he groaned, turning away. “Always tears! You are giving me an awful headache with your blubbering.” He gave a small sigh before letting his attention fall back to the king. “I seem to be in a rather generous spirit today. Laila has asked for a chance, and so a chance is what I will give you.”
“Out with it!” Edward snapped.
“Three days,” he said quietly. “I will give you three more precious days with your child, and if in that time you can guess my name, you can keep the little beast. But if you fail, then the child remains mine.”
My heart leapt.
“Your name? That’s it?” Edward asked.
The stranger ignored him, concentrating instead on a new scroll taking shape in his hand. Those same cryptic symbols covered every inch of the paper. The king snatched the parchment and inspected the miniscule scratches.
“I just have to guess your name and you’ll leave us in peace?” Edward asked again.
“Yes,” the stranger replied. “All you have to do is sign, and so it shall be.”
A black quill appeared between his long fingers, the same quill he had presented to me. I felt chilled at the memory of its bite on my fingertips.
“Don’t worry about ink,” he said as he handed it to Edward.
“No!” I cried.
Both men looked at me, confused, as I snatched the quill away from Edward’s hand. Rage burned in Edward’s eyes, but I didn’t care. I
couldn’t allow the same mistake to happen twice. This had to be thought through. I didn’t want another deal. I wanted freedom.
“Making a new deal will only enslave us further. He wouldn’t make something so easy if it weren’t for his own gain. ”
“Shut up!” Edward roared. “You’ve nearly destroyed everything. Do you really want to finish the job?”
He seized my arm and ripped the quill out of my grasp. The tip of the instrument scraped across my hand, leaving searing pain in its wake. My blood welled up from the wound, and I stared at it, desperately trying to think through all the moves of this maniac’s deadly game of chess.
“My patience is growing thin.” The stranger’s words were uncommonly cold. His eyes remained transfixed on the sticky red liquid flowing down my fingers. “You either sign, or I take the child now.”
The paper rustled in Edward’s hand as if possessing a life of its own, and the quill responded with a quiver in his fingers, yearning for the bliss of the page. It did not have to wait long. The quill twisted and twirled across the parchment as the king carved his name into its welcoming embrace.
Red filled his face as he endured the pain I knew to be burning his fingertips. His hand remained firm, though, leaving a trail of bright red blood behind until it was finished. He gave a groan, throwing the quill to the floor once it was done and looked at his fingers.
“See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” the stranger asked, rolling up the contract. “I will see you in three days. Better enjoy your remaining moments with your son.”
He gave one final grimace in my direction and, without any warning, vanished completely, leaving me alone with Edward.
Chapter Ten
After All: King Edward
“What is his name?” I shouted at the bitch. I know she was refusing to tell me for some twisted reason of her own. “WHAT’S HIS NAME?”
“I already told you, I don’t know,” she hissed back. She looked feral with her eyes narrowed and teeth bared. A wild bitch that I once thought I had tamed but who had turned on me and bitten my giving hand.
Spin: A Fairy Tale Retelling (Spindlewind Trilogy Book One) Page 13
